Serendipity
by La Fuego
Summary: Teammates who like to assume things about you and your doubles partner, a best friend who likes to keep you guessing, mind games, DDR tournaments, and sappy chick flicks... Aaaah! The perfect recipe for a fun summer! Oshitari/Gakuto and Hyotei Ensemble
1. Prelude to the Summer

**Title:** Serendipity  
**Genre:** Fluffy Romance, (a bit of) Humor  
**Beta: ****pinksnow1986** and **hakkaisensei**  
**Fandom: **Prince of Tennis  
**Pairing:** Dirty Pair (Oshitari/Gakuto) -- the entire Hyotei ensemble appear prominently in the story, though  
**Disclaimers: **I own them... but only in my dreams. In reality, they belong to each other and to Konomi-sensei. Was not made rich by this, so don't sue!  
**Rating: **T (PG-13) mostly for swearing...  
**Summary: **Teammates who like to assume things about you and your doubles partner, a best friend who likes to keep you guessing, a summer training camp in a luxurious private resort, mind games, DDR tournaments, and sappy chick flicks... Aaaahh! The perfect recipe for a fun summer!  
**Author's Notes: **written for **decollement** in the recently concluded **potbth** fic exchange on LJ. Prompts/kinks taken up for this particular writing project: watching movies to escape the heat, playing DDR in Atobe's mansion, Hyotei regulars turning up at inappropriate moments, witty exchanges, confessions, first kisses.

* * *

Note: (1) In Japan, liking sweets is often deemed a very unmanly trait. Most yaoi novels even make use of this fact to give their characters a clear and definitive "uke indicator".

(2) Movie: _Wimbledon_ (2004) starring Kirsten Dunst and Bettany Paul. A romantic comedy about a washed-up old pro and an up-and-coming tennis star during the Wimbledon championships.

**Serendipity**

If anything, I'd say it was an accident. I certainly didn't mean for it to turn out this way, but it did. I'm not complaining; I'm actually glad that things turned out the way they did, but I'll be damned if I were to admit that I didn't know exactly what the heck was going on until it was staring me in the face…

Wait… I think I just lost you, didn't I? Well then, let me try to explain. I'll backtrack a little and let you see that it was all Yuushi's fault… It's _always_ Yuushi's fault.

It had been a very typical tennis club afternoon with most of the first years generally running around, the juniors and seniors paired up and intent on practicing to eventually wrestle a spot from a regular (as if!), Yuushi overseeing the swinging practice of some of the more promising freshmen, Hiyoshi and Taki on a practice match against Ohtori and Shishido, Atobe sitting as prettily as you please in a shaded corner with Kabaji waiting on him, Jirou sleeping through practically everything, and myself flitting about, causing mild mayhem and coordinated chaos here and there. Yup, all was right in the Hyotei Gakuen tennis club.

All was right until we came to the end of afternoon practices. And then it began…

Ohtori came up to me with that sunny smile firmly plastered on his face. He was absent-mindedly rubbing the sweat off him with a towel as he made innocent small talk. At least it was innocent _to him_.

"Ne, Mukahi-senpai, will you be walking home with Oshitari-senpai again today?"

I tried unsuccessfully to bite back the grimace that came to my face when I heard some of the muted snickering that went on around me, but I didn't say anything to Ohtori's question.

That was a bad move, as he seemed to have taken my silence as an invitation to continue on with his idea of friendly chatter. "Will you guys be dropping by that place that sells those wonderful crêpes? I've always wanted to try their crêpes! Are they any good, senpai?"

The attempts at tamping down the snickering were a whole lot less successful this time around and I could've sworn I heard a snort mixed in there somewhere.

I've never had the best control on my temper and I must shamefully admit that that particular afternoon had been no different. Without thought, I waspishly snapped, "How the hell should I know?!" at Ohtori.

That was a _very _bad move.

Ohtori looked taken aback and he clamped his mouth shut, his eyes growing as wide as they would go and I can almost see him mentally grasping for the proper words to apologize for whatever it was he said that set me off. One of the most tedious things about Ohtori apologizing is trying to get him to stop—if he had his way, he'd be bowing in apology to me until the following week. And the other tedious thing about that would be…

"Hey! Stop taking out your PMS-induced bitching on Choutaro, mop-top!" Shishido practically hissed at me as he fell into place beside his doubles partner.

I rolled my eyes and bit back the scathing retort that was burning the tip of my tongue to the slight against my hair. For all that I blow my fuse over every little thing, when it comes to Ohtori, Shishido was worse than I could ever hope to be.

I held onto my silence as Shishido continued his ranting in defense of his precious kouhai, "The only reason he thought to ask you was because he saw you and Oshitari on a date in there last Friday."

My brow furrowed as I thought back to the day in question and things clicked into place. "That was not a _date_, you friggin' moron!"

"Sure," Shishido scoffed at me.

"Yuushi and I aren't like _that_! Just because YOU are dating your doubles partner doesn't mean I'm dating mine," I sneered at Shishido. I got a whole lot of satisfaction when the older half of the Silver Pair got that slightly panicked look as he furtively glanced around to make sure that no one outside of the tennis club members heard my declaration about his and Ohtori's dating status.

"That Psychology elective Yuushi is taking this term is messing with his brain—and mine too." I continued with my explanation, "He was going on and on about this supposed complex I'm developing because of some supposed _'masculinity issues'_ I'm dealing with. He says I react too much to things that I deem may lower my sense of masculinity. And I told him that was a load of bull. So he dared me to go into that crêpe shop and order the sweetest thing they had on the menu(1). That's all there was to it!"

"So you still went ahead and bought a crêpe from that shop." Shishido pointed out with a brow raised at me, "Then why didn't you just answer Choutaro's question about how good the crêpe was?"

The conversation was getting ridiculously mind-numbing and I can't believe it revolved around some stupid crêpes! Damned Yuushi and his Psychology class! "How the hell should I know? I've never had a sweet tooth, and eating something as insanely sweet as that crêpe I was forced to order would have given me a headache, so I gave the stupid thing to Yuushi and watched as I forced _him_ to _eat it_!"

"Aaaawww! Feeding each other crêpes now, are we?" Atobe drawled out mockingly as he strutted past us on his way into the club room. "How very sweet. Sickeningly cliché, but still sweet."

It was at that point that I lost it and started shrieking out expletives at Atobe's back at a pitch that would have done credit to the banshee that Shishido swears is in my ancestry.

* * *

"That was very well done of you," Yuushi's deep, even baritone reached my ears as he fell into step beside me. After the spectacle I made of myself during that afternoon's after-practice, all I wanted was to go home and I seriously did not want to deal with Yuushi right then. I continued my silent sulking and pretended to ignore him.

But I forget that Yuushi has always been immune to my sulking and my ignoring. A hand clapped against my shoulder and pulled me towards my doubles partner in a loose kind of half-hug. "I think you handled that quite well," he drawled out in that accent of his that sometimes keep me guessing if he's being sarcastic or not.

I made a face at myself when I remembered the sardonic laughter I got from Atobe after I hurled out aspersions on the legitimacy of the circumstances of his birth as well as that of his mother's.

"That was all _your_ fault, you know."

"Of course, it is," Yuushi immediately agreed in amused resignation. He's way too used to these blamestorming sessions.

"You and that Psychology class of yours!"

"Mmm-hmm," he hummed in agreement.

"And while we're talking," here, Yuushi's brow rose at my use of the word _'talking'_, "why do you never say anything when those annoying pricks start in on the Oshitari-and-Gakuto-are-together thing?!"

"What is there to say? I can declare all the denials I can think of until my face turns the same color as my hair, and they'll still say whatever they feel like saying anyway," Yuushi countered.

Geh! He had a point. I _hate_ it when Yuushi comes up with a valid argument! "But still," I plowed on—I always had to have the last word, for all the good that does me with Yuushi, "you're my best friend! My doubles partner! You're supposed to have my back!"

I really should have gotten a clue from the almost feral smile Yuushi gave me when I said that.

* * *

Thinking too much about stuff is not something that _I_ do. I don't like looking at myself, trying to find things that are wrong. I usually prefer to look at others and pick apart _their_ imperfections rather than look inward and focus on my own. But I couldn't deny that what happened earlier this afternoon had gotten to me. It's not so much that argument about the stupid crêpe that got to me; it wasn't even about Atobe and his teeth-gnashingly annoying condescension, because he's always been a condescending bastard. No, it was the persistent teasing that Yuushi and I got all the time that was scraping my nerves raw.

Why do people keep hinting that Yuushi and I are more than just friends?

Edgily, I bounced over to my dresser mirror and examined my face. I regarded my child-like dark blue eyes fringed with short, thick lashes, and narrowed my eyes into slits; I was hoping that doing so would make them look a bit less child-like—I gave it up when I realized that doing so only made me look more like a sulky kid than anything else. Next, I surveyed my lips and made a moue of distaste; they were a disgustingly pretty shade of pink and were delicately shaped—the kind of lips that _girls_ my age would probably kill to have. My pert nose and winged eyebrows weren't spared from my self-disparaging inspection. Moodily, I tugged at a lock of hair by the side of my face, '_Hmmm… Maybe I should get a haircut…?_'

The problem, the way I saw it, was that I looked way too girly! Maybe if I lost the angular bob and chugged down gallons of milk like there was no tomorrow in order to gain a few more inches, I'd probably get those annoying jerks off my case about Yuushi.

… Or maybe I won't.

The frustration was getting to me, so I picked up the phone and called up my favorite stress reliever. He picked up on the second ring.

"Mukahi-senpai? It's almost 11 o'clo—"

"I know, Hiyoshi," I said, rudely cutting him off. He's used to this from me so he kept quiet and waited for what I wanted to say so badly that it couldn't wait until the following day. "I just heard something that I thought you might want to know."

"Huh? Uh… What is it?" Hiyoshi asked hesitantly. He has good reason to be wary of me, after all.

"I heard that Taki has a thing for you, and that he's planning to confess to you before school lets out for the summer."

Of course, it wasn't true… or at least, I thought it wasn't. But the spluttering and the flustered squawking I heard on the other end of the line made me feel so much better. I let out a wicked cackle before I killed the connection.


	2. Let the Mind Games Begin

Hey guys! This was originally posted as a one-shot. But I realized that it's quite long. So I thought I'd break it down into bite-sized, easier-to-digest chapters. I hope you enjoy! Concrits and Reviews would be very much appreciated!

* * *

"So that's settled then?" Atobe had no problems making himself heard above the lunch crowd din. "Today is Friday, the last day of school before summer break starts. There will be no club meeting this afternoon, but I will be expecting you guys on Monday next week. I'll meet all of you in front of the school gate at 7:00AM where a shuttle bus will take us to my family's beach resort. Remember, this is for _training_."

Murmurs of acceptance and understanding went around the table.

"What's that you're reading there, Hiyoshi?"

At the sudden question I directed at him, Hiyoshi looked up at me in mild alarm. I was amused to note that his eyes held equal parts of animosity and suspicion when he looked at me, and that in the long lunch table that we occupied, he was sitting in the seat that was as far away from Taki as possible.

In answer to my question though, he held up the book he was reading and let me read the title: _Basic English Grammar Rules – Standard Reviewer Edition_.

"Oh, is that for your exam today, Hiyoshi-kun?" Ohtori asked.

"Hn," Hiyoshi grunted in the affirmative. "My last exam is on English and I'm not doing very well in it."

"Gakuto's excellent in English," Yuushi piped in from across the table, "maybe you could ask him to help you out with some of the things you don't understand."

Hiyoshi didn't say anything, but his face clearly said that he'd rather immerse himself in a tub full of poisonous snakes than ask for my help in anything.

Shishido laughed at Hiyoshi's expression and attempted to impress us with his English skills when he said, "I DON'T THINK GAKUTO ISN'T GOOD WITH ENGLISH."

While the English words flew over most of the others' heads, Atobe and Yuushi started snickering. "Baka!" I said mockingly. "Was that supposed to be an insult? Haven't you ever heard of the rule on double negatives?"

Shishido's brow furrowed in thought as he went over his sentence in his head, even as Hiyoshi's fingers were flying through his book trying to find the explanation to Shishido's error.

I tried to tamp down the smug smile that was fighting to find itself on my face. Far too often, people take me for an airhead incapable of retaining anything academic. I've just been given the chance to show them, Shishido especially, that I was not an idiot.

Smugly, I recited, "In English, a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, like Russian, a double negative is still negative. But there is no language in the world where two positives can form a negative."

There was dead silence.

And then, from under his breath, Yuushi muttered, "YEAH, RIGHT."

* * *

The four-hour trip to Atobe's beach resort had been fairly boring, but that changed as soon as we arrived at our destination. From the beginning, Atobe made sure to pack in as many activities as he could cram into a single day without outright killing us.

And after the sheer torture that the day had been for us, it was wonderful to just sit down and watch the setting sun and enjoy the soothing sound of the rolling waves. The private beach that was part of the Atobe family's property was nothing short of spectacular! Of course, you wouldn't expect anything less from Atobe. The beach house itself had no less than fifteen rooms.

I've been looking forward to the bonfire at the beach since that morning. And after a full day of hiking and swimming and biking (all under the guise of training), relaxing by a fire was a godsend. I sat down beside Yuushi on an old beached log.

It wasn't long before they started in on us again…Shishido smirking at us in such a smug, _knowing_ way, and suggesting some "couple activities" that Yuushi and I might wanna do while we were at the beach. Atobe threw in a comment here and there, either adding to some of Shishido's suggestions or vetoing them with a disdainful sniff. Ohtori wisely didn't say anything but the slight blush staining his cheeks (that had nothing to do with the warmth of the fire) and the twinkle in his eyes gave away his thoughts. Jirou managed to turn a situation from bad to worse when he sleepily asked Atobe, "Are Gakuto and Oshitari getting married after high school?" in a whisper loud enough to be heard clear across the beach.

I _so_ wanted to say _a lot_ of things but the boneless lethargy that was over me made the effort of snapping back at them seem too much. Yuushi was right; no matter what I said to deny it, they'd still say whatever the hell they wanted to say anyway.

Coming to the conclusion that not saying anything at all would be best for my sanity, I tried hard to shut out the annoying buzzing that their conversation made and limply leaned against Yuushi's side, my head resting on his shoulder. One of his arms went around my shoulders to share his blanket with me, and at the warmth and comfort, my eyes drifted shut of their own volition and a small, contented sigh escaped my lips.

… And then I noticed the unnatural silence.

I cracked an eye open to see what had happened; Ohtori was looking everywhere but at me and Yuushi; Hiyoshi was engaged in the serious study of a twig in his hands, a light blush on his cheeks; Taki was doodling random stuff on the sand before him; Kabaji was as deadpan as ever while he supported Jirou's weight as the latter was starting to doze; Shishido looked like a beached fish, his mouth opening and closing without saying anything; and Atobe, for once, seemed blessedly at a loss for words.

I looked up at Yuushi in question, but he just shrugged and shook his head at me. I looked back at our tormentors in time to see Ohtori pulling on Shishido's arm. The former quietly cleared his throat and announced to the group that he and Shishido were retiring for the night. Hiyoshi lost no time in following suit and making himself scarce. In a matter of seconds, everyone had found one reason or another to leave Yuushi and me alone.

Once again, I looked up at Yuushi, this time in astonishment. But it didn't take long before I felt the beatific smile blooming on my face. I had just found a way to get people off my back about Yuushi.

* * *

"You want me to do what?" Yuushi asked once again.

"I want you to pretend to like me."

He arched a brow at me, "But I _do_ like you."

He was completely missing the point, the idiot! I shook my head at him in exasperation. "Whatever! Listen, Yuushi, tomorrow, I want you to just play along with me, alright? Since it seems that all it takes to shut those guys up is to prove to them that they're right about us, then I'll let them believe that they're right about us all they want!"

The look on Yuushi's face was skeptical at best. "So we're going to pretend to be a couple…?" it sounded more like an open-ended statement than an actual question.

I nodded enthusiastically in confirmation. I can imagine that the grin on my face might have looked maniacal.

Finally, Yuushi's face took up its customary smirk-smile, and my own grin lost a little of its own brilliance. Having that particular smile of Yuushi's directed at you can never be a good thing. He confirmed it yet again when he asked, "Does that mean you're going to be all over me and I get to take advantage of the situation?"

The satisfying _thunk_ of my hand connecting to the back of Yuushi's skull upped the wattage of my grin once again.

* * *

For the next two days, I enjoyed the wide array of reactions I kept getting from the rest of the regulars (plus Taki, who only seems to have been 'kicked out' of the regulars in theory but not in practice). The very next morning, after the bonfire, we all sat down to eat breakfast together in the sunny morning room. Yuushi and I were the last ones to arrive because he had to drag my sorry, reluctant-riser ass outta bed.

When Yuushi and I walked into the room, the conversations that were going on seemed to have died instant deaths. They took one look at my pouty, disheveled appearance and Yuushi's self-satisfied smirk and drew their own conclusions. The conversations picked up again, louder than before, in an effort to make everything seem normal. My irritation at being woken up instantly got blown away.

Cackling like a loon on the inside, I grabbed Yuushi's hand and pulled him towards the two remaining seats on the other side of the breakfast table. At the sight of our connected hands, the conversations stuttered for a bit and then gained even more volume. The smile on Ohtori's face as he tried to engage both Shishido and Hiyoshi in conversation was looking strained and he was talking at an unnatural speed. I saw Shishido sneaking suspicious glances at me and Yuushi all through breakfast, but he didn't say anything. Perfect! That was when I knew I'd hit on the perfect plan.

The following day, I saw Atobe raising an elegantly imperious eyebrow at Ohtori, as if silently asking the sophomore an expectant _"Well…?"_, and Shishido was making small shooing gestures with his hands at his boyfriend. From where I was standing, unseen and unnoticed by the others, I watched Ohtori hesitantly make his way towards Yuushi.

"Anou… Oshitari-senpai, we…" Ohtori looked back uncertainly at the small cluster that Atobe and Shishido and Taki made at the other end of the room, "… er, we were wondering about you and—"

"Good morning, Ohtori!" I cut in smoothly, coming in seemingly out of nowhere, effectively heading off the question that would surely ask Yuushi for confirmation if he and I were really _together_.

Yuushi had been playing along with me and accommodating my whims with an indulgent smile, but he hadn't said anything one way or the other on how he felt about this charade. I was afraid that if asked directly, he would admit that this was just another one of my crazy stunts to mess with their minds. I had to keep Yuushi from spilling the beans as this plan was accomplishing what all other previous schemes had failed to do: shutting up the regulars about my supposed passionate affair with my best friend.

Once I was standing next to him, Yuushi lightly put a hand to the small of my back and he smiled down at me with a look that clearly said, _'I know why you did that but I'm not telling you how I would have answered Ohtori if you hadn't cut him off.'_ But Yuushi being Yuushi, of course, wasn't able to resist teasing me… or Ohtori, for that matter. "You were about to ask, Ohtori-kun…?"

Ohtori blushed deeply and started fidgeting with his jacket zipper. "Oh… er, I was just wondering about Oshitari-senpai and… uh, anou… um, about Oshitari-senpai and… and the movie he's chosen for tomorrow night's film viewing."

Barely muted expletives and curses burst out from Atobe and Shishido and Taki.

Yuushi chuckled and answered breezily that, of course, he had chosen a romantic comedy.

I furrowed my brow in disapproval, both of Yuushi's taste in movies and of his teasing. "You suck!" I declared as I barely pulled the punch I aimed at his shoulder. "Sometimes even I wonder why you're my best friend!"

At my words, Ohtori's flustered expression was replaced by a frustrated and confused one. _Friend?_ Once again, he looked back at the Atobe cluster at the other end of the room for clarification, but they all seemed just as frustrated and confused as Ohtori was.


	3. Falling Into Your Own Trap Omake

The room was dark and the only illumination came from the 52" plasma TV on one side of the room. On the screen, Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany were engaged in a heated argument about something I wasn't quite sure of. Personally, I only paid attention to the screen whenever the tennis match scenes were on2.

Nestled snugly beside Yuushi, I leaned up to whisper in his ear, "I swear, you pick the sappiest chick flicks you can find just to annoy me!"

He gave a low chuckle that sent delicious shivers down my spine. That took me by surprise—that was not the reaction I usually got when Yuushi chuckled like that. But over the last couple of days, things had been changing. I kept noticing little things about Yuushi that I had never really paid attention to before. I wasn't entirely sure I liked where my little observations and reactions were taking me. This was a ploy to get people off my back about Yuushi, damn it! I shouldn't be getting caught up in it!

"Are you feeling cold?" Yuushi asked me softly.

I shook my head to answer in the negative. "Why do you ask?"

Yuushi gave a small shrug. "I thought I felt you shiver."

I was thankful for the dark that hid the burning I felt on my cheeks. "Nah, it was just the overwhelming sap in this movie."

I could hear the restless rustling and fidgeting from the others in the room. Just like me, the only reasons they were tolerating this movie was (1) because Yuushi chose it and they didn't want to hurt his feelings by expressing outright distaste for his movie pick (besides, when Atobe put Yuushi in charge of movie night, everyone more or less expected that the movie would be something like this) and (2) because the Wimbledon scenes made it bearable.

Desperately trying to stave off the boredom, I tugged at Yuushi's shirt. "Ne, are the others looking at us?"

He gave me that low chuckle again. "Can't you feel their eyes practically boring holes into our sides? I swear they've been watching us more than they have the movie."

I snickered at the thought of them trying to see what Yuushi and I were up to in the dark. I'm pretty sure that the back and forth whispering we were doing looked absolutely suspicious to them.

"Want to do something to freak them out?" Yuushi whispered conspiratorially to me.

I just looked at him in question.

His smile looked positively wicked as he tilted my chin up with a finger and leaned in close to me. My eyes shot wide open, my breath got stuck in my throat, and my mouth dried up so damned fast that I thought my tongue had just glued itself permanently to the roof of my mouth. But instead of the kiss that I thought was coming, he tilted my head at a certain angle and the corner of his mouth touched the corner of mine.

"Relax," he whispered to me, his voice a damned silken thing, "we're only pretending, remember?" And with that, he pulled back and let my head rest against his shoulder.

We both silently laughed when we heard Atobe's hissed, "Damn it, Shishido! I told you to move your head! I didn't get to see!"

* * *

Tiny beads of perspiration were starting to roll down Yuushi's back and his breath was beginning to come out in little pants. Despite the unkempt look that he was currently sporting because of the hair plastered to his face by sweat, I still thought Yuushi was the most gorgeous-looking creature I had ever seen in my life. The rhythmic sway of his hips had me hypnotized. But I snapped out of my daze in a hurry when I heard Shishido snickering beside me.

"Tongue back in your mouth, Gakuto," he said in an annoyingly sing-song voice.

Sitting in an overstuffed chair to my right, I heard Hiyoshi muttering things under his breath about "shouldn't be ogling his boyfriend in public" and "could see that all the time when they're alone, anyway".

I was saved from having to lash out at Shishido and the stupid mushroom by the song ending and Yuushi walking over to me. For the last day of our "training camp", Atobe regally declared that we were to have a DDR tournament. Honestly! The things that went on in Atobe's head…

I threw a small towel at Yuushi with a scowl. "You seriously need more stamina training if five songs in a row on DDR could wind you like that."

He looked a bit puzzled by the slight venom in my tone but he only shrugged it off and mildly defended himself with, "Five songs in a row on _Maniac level_."

"Whatever!"

"Yo, mop-top, if you think you could do better, why don't you give it a go?" Shishido jeered at me.

"You're on!" I accepted the challenge.

"But we get to pick the song," Shishido stipulated. I lost a teensy bit of my confidence at that, but I nodded my acceptance, anyway.

I was standing at the ready on the dance pad when I saw the song that Shishido picked for me. "**Fascination –eternal love mix-**3?" I shrieked out at him. "You've gotta be effing kidding me! That thing has a 10-footer difficulty rating!"

"Admitting defeat so soon, ahn?" Atobe smirked at me.

"Like hell I am! Bring it!" I shouted at the gloating jerk.

… I was barely into the third line of the song and I was already in danger of failing. I could hear the smug snickering around me.

"Aw, c'mon, Gakuto! What happened to all that dexterity and sharp reflexes that you're so proud of?" Shishido taunted me.

"Shut up, freak!" I snapped back even as I was frantically jumping around the dance pad. "I said I was acrobatic, I never claimed to be an octopus! With all these arrows all over the place and the irregular beats, how am I supposed to get all of them? Besides," I sniped, "I don't think I've seen any of you guys attempt to do this song before."

And then I almost jumped out of my skin when I felt Yuushi's body flush against my back. I almost fell over in my surprise and my voice came out sounding two octaves higher when I squawked at him in flustered alarm, "Yuushi! What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

He splayed a large hand on my stomach to help me keep my balance but that also kept my backside in constant contact with the front of his hips. God, this can NOT be a good thing.

"Relax," Yuushi whispered into my ear. "We can finish this song together; I'll help you."

And so he did. Part of what makes us such an effective doubles pair is that Yuushi has always been good at reading me. We didn't even need to talk about who was going to get which arrows, he just knew which ones I was going to go for and so he got those that I couldn't. As we were on that dance pad, sinfully mooshed together in places I wouldn't even tell my mother about, everything fell away. There was nothing else but me and Yuushi and the beat that flowed in us, through us, around us.

If I thought earlier that the sight of Yuushi's hips were hypnotizing, then that had nothing on this feeling of our hips bumping, grinding, and swaying together. I was in a trance where it seemed as though all my senses have been heightened, but they were all geared towards sensing only Yuushi. I felt him, felt all the places where he touched me, felt the heat that his body was radiating. I saw him, saw how that hand of his splayed on my stomach seemed to be screaming of possession. I heard him, heard the slightly accelerated tempo of his heart, heard the heavy puffs of breath he blew out… that sound made my own even breathing turn ragged. I could smell him and hell! If I could bottle that smell and sell it as an aphrodisiac, I'd be a freaking millionaire! And dear God, we were so close that I could almost _taste_ him…

And then the song ended.

I blinked owlishly as though waking up from a dream. I looked around to find everyone looking at me and Yuushi as though we just did the dirty right in front of them… and when I thought about it, we might as well have. My face burned up and I didn't know what to say. I certainly wasn't up to looking at Yuushi just then, or I just might have treated my friends to a first-hand viewing of spontaneous human combustion.

I stepped away from Yuushi, mumbled some lame excuse about needing to get something from my room and beat a hasty retreat.

* * *

I ran back to the room I shared with Yuushi in a panic. The weird churning in my stomach, the wild pounding in my chest, the breath getting stuck in my throat… Those weren't part of the plan. They weren't supposed to happen. The fact that they were happening was throwing me for a loop! It was hurting my brain.

I went to stand by the window and breathed in deeply of the salt-tinged air to calm myself, but the lean, muscled arms that encircled me from behind immediately had my heart racing again.

"Ne, Yuushi, you don't have to do this," I said in a tightly controlled voice. "Nobody's here to see anyway."

Yuushi's arms tightened around me even more. "I'm not doing this for them; I'm doing this for you," his voice always sounded so danged silky and sexy when he whispered into my hair like that. How come I never noticed that before? Yuushi likes whispering into my hair whenever I'm upset—it calms me down more effectively than anything else can. "You looked distressed when you left the room. Is everything alright?"

"Yeah," I answered softly. Yuushi snorted into my hair.

I frowned. "You better not have gotten snot into my hair, Yuushi!"

He chuckled.

Sexily.

_Damn!_ I am _so_ screwed!

I turned around in Yuushi's arms (since he was obviously unwilling to relinquish his hold on me), and I looked up at him to find him studying the top of my head. I called his name so he'd look at _me_. The second his eyes met mine, I almost wished he'd go back to staring at the top of my head.

"Ne, maybe we could stop pretending now," I said thoughtfully. "The others guys aren't quite as annoying anymore, so I guess I can live with some of their teasing every now and then."

Yuushi laughed at me. "Gakuto, you have never taken teasing of any sort nicely. I doubt you ever will; not even if your life depended on it."

I stuck my tongue out at him like the mature individual that I was. "Well, gee! Thanks for the vote of confidence," I snapped out sarcastically.

He made soothing little circles with his hands on my back to placate me. "Maa, I just know you too well."

"At any rate, I still think that I could handle the guys on my own now," I said stubbornly. "You don't have to pretend to like me anymore."

Yuushi arched a brow at me. "Who said I was pretending?"

I rolled my eyes at him and pushed against his chest. "You are _such_ an _ass_!" My heart was starting to pound so hard that I was almost sure Yuushi could hear it.

"And this," Yuushi breathed out in that low, velvety voice of his as he pulled me against his chest, "is why people think you're such an airhead."

He leaned down close until I could feel his moist breath against my lips. His eyes were studying mine and I'm sure mine reflected the conflicting emotions and the reeling confusion I had swirling in my gut. "God, you are _so_ clueless!" Yuushi muttered before he claimed my lips in a possessive kiss.

And all the gut-wrenching confusion was calmed; all the voices inside my head were silenced. Yes. Just… yes. _This_ is what I have been wanting. Yuushi's arms tightened around me in a bone-crushing embrace even as he deepened the kiss. I was so caught up in it that I had no choice but to respond to Yuushi's passion. It wasn't until I whimpered from lack of air that Yuushi broke the kiss.

"You _are_ an ass," I accused Yuushi.

He raised a silent, questioning brow at me.

"You knew all the time, didn't you?" I looked at him suspiciously. "You knew it was going to end up like this."

"Pretty much, yes." Yuushi answered smugly. "You always were slow on the uptake like that. You didn't even realize how much I wanted you. It was only a matter of time before I got you, you know."

"Ass!" I said again. He just gave me his customary smirk-smile and was just about to lean down to kiss me again, when we heard the hectic whispering and arguing just outside the door—which was, incidentally, opened just a crack.

"Pay up, Shishido! I _told_ you it was just an act!"

"Shut up! I ain't paying you a cent, Atobe. They're not acting _now_, are they?"

"But the bet was about the past 3 days, not for what's happening now."

"Ssshhh! Atobe-buchou, Shishido-san, they're gonna hear you…"

"Too late for that now," Yuushi informed the spies by the door. "Could you settle your accounts elsewhere? And close the door properly, please. I'd like to make out with my boyfriend. In private, if you don't mind."

Scrambling noises were heard on the other side of the door before we heard the lock click into place.

"Now where were we…?"

* * *

Omake:

We were all sluggishly making our way down from the bus and going out into the bright sunlight. The "training camp" had been eventful in more ways than any of us could have ever imagined… and it wasn't over just yet.

"Isn't everyone out already?" Atobe asked, stamping his feet impatiently. "You'd think that after four straight hours cooped up in a bus, you'd be more than eager to get out of it when you reach your destination."

Yuushi pushed up his glasses and looked at the shuttle bus. "I believe that Hiyoshi-kun and Taki are still--"

"Whaaaaat?!" We all heard Hiyoshi shriek from inside the bus. "But I thought Mukahi-senpai was only kidding about that!"

There was the sound of pattering feet and then we saw Hiyoshi shooting out of the bus and running off like a bat out of hell. Taki emerged from the bus only a little later.

"What the hell was that about?" Shishido asked.

Taki scratched his head in puzzlement. "I just confessed to him… I thought it would be alright." And then he turned to look at me, "Ne, Mukahi, what exactly did you tell Hiyoshi?"

owari  
La Fuego  
07/10/2008

* * *

That's it! Done! I hope you guys enjoyed it. Comments and Reviews would be deeply appreciated!


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